


Sacrifice

by cpolimeni



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, Angst with a Happy Ending, Developing Relationship, F/F, Girl Penis, Girl Penis Clarke Griffin, Girl Penis Lexa, Go Easy On Me, I Will Go Down With This Ship, Multi, Omega Verse, Original Character(s), Other, Past Relationship(s), Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-13
Updated: 2017-04-20
Packaged: 2018-03-29 00:27:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3875539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cpolimeni/pseuds/cpolimeni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the aftermath of Mount Weather's defeat, Clarke Griffin leaves Bellamy Blake at the gates of Camp Jaha to seek the solace of the forest. She is lost among her own guilt as much as she is lost within the trees around her. She does not expect, however, to meet anyone along her way. When she does, she learns more about the Grounder community and Lexa, though not in the way she would have ever expected. Clarke is seeking forgiveness for the sacrifices she has had to make, but there are sacrifices still to come as she is thrown into a world of chaos, deceit, and revelation. Will she find understanding in the darkness of her trials, or will it consume her forever?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Among the Sentinels

**Author's Note:**

> I’m 100% new to this site, and 100% new to fan-fiction, but I am going to give this venture my best shot! I have become enamored with the hit CW TV show, “The 100”, and after the Season 2 finale of the show, I have been hungrily reading several fanfics concerning what might happen to Clarke, Lexa, and the Grounders/Sky People. Given that I’m a “newbie”, I would appreciate feedback, kudos, or criticism of any kind. Here goes, and I hope that you all enjoy reading this work as much as I enjoyed writing (and reveling) in it!  
> This story takes place following the Season Finale, “Blood Must Have Blood, Part 2” (2.16). You will also find that, when applicable, characters in italic represent the mental thoughts, not the spoken words, of the corresponding characters.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Updated 4/13/17

Clarke awoke to the sound of birds overhead. The melody was melancholy, and she was lost in its sad beauty for the space of a breath before time, memory, and the terrible weight of guilt came rushing back to her. She squeezed her eyes shut tightly against the morning light with a great sigh and rose from the forest floor. 

Wiping the sleep from behind her eyelids with the dirty cuffs of her sleeves, she huffed out a breath as she stood, brushing herself off halfheartedly. Without so much as a backward glance, she ignored the stiffness in her travel-worn body, chose an arbitrary direction, and set off. She was going nowhere, because there was nowhere for her to go. It had been a month or more since the fall of the Mountain- since she left Bellamy and the rest of her people at the gates of Camp Jaha to seek the solace of the trees.

In that time, armed with only a handgun, a knife, and her own crippling sense of self-loathing, the omega wandered through the wood aimlessly in search of forgiveness that she could not and would not give herself. She spent her days tracking animals painstakingly through the underbrush only to find that she was all too good at killing animals as well as humans. The thought alone made it hard for her to eat enough to sustain herself. When she was not stalking prey, she wandered in any and every direction without purpose.

At first, she slept under the roots of fallen trees or in a cave if she could find one, but mostly she slept on the bed of pine needles that littered the ground, out in the open. She knew it was a stupid, reckless thing to do. She was unguarded and poorly armed and becoming weaker and weaker by the day, but she didn’t care anymore.

Under those timeless sentinels though, the trees that stared down at her indifferently, she could pretend that she did not feel either. They guarded her impassively, her secrets and her guilt and the sense of heaviness that weighed upon her constantly. They did not judge her, nor did they care about her. In a way, this was what Clarke wanted. She was a phantom. An apparition. A memory, and less every day.

As long as she was deep in the forest, with no one around for her to hurt, she could tell herself that she did not feel at all; that she was nothing. Being nothing at all was better than being a murderer of children and innocents. The omega within Clarke yearned for the comfort of her friends and her mother, to be among those she cared for more than herself, but despite her instincts she could not face them. This was her sacrifice, and she did not deserve to be forgiven. The omega without a pack. She did not deserve the love of good people, and they did not deserve her rage.

And so, in this way, Clarke Griffin survived the torment of her waking hours. It was at night that she came undone. 

*******************************************************************************

“I know I probably don’t deserve it, but I need to know the truth.” Clarke said to Wells, a sense of dread rising in her chest as she confronted him about her fears. “I wanted to believe it, but I couldn’t. I blamed you for my Father's death and it’s my mother’s fault…Wells, please. You need to tell me.”

Darkness had settled upon their camp at the end of a long day, and Clarke found Wells on the outskirts of it, gathering firewood alone as he often did.

 

Wells’ jaw worked back and forth and his brow furrowed as he searched for something, anything, to say. “I didn’t want you to feel the pain of knowing…” Wells began, but his voice faded into silence as Clarke hung her head and a quiet sob escaped her lips, her blonde hair falling in front of her face as she stared at her feet. 

 

“You wanted to protect me, of course. I’m so sorry, Wells. How could you ever forgive me?” Clarke whispered, eyes brimming with unshed tears. Her guilt was palpable. Wells stood before her, shoulders slumped with his hands hanging limply at his sides, firewood forgotten in a heap. The beta in him wanted to console Clarke, to bring her into his arms and show her that she couldn't lose him.

   
“Clarke, there’s nothing to forgive.” He said, shaking his head. The blonde looked up at her childhood friend and stepped forward into his waiting embrace as he wordlessly accepted the apology that had been so long in coming.

 

Clarke was ashamed at her stubborn blindness, but she was also relieved. A part of her, she thought, had always known that her mother was somehow behind her father’s fate, willingly or not. Wells’ easy and genuine forgiveness made it possible to forgive herself, and because of it she knew that she would somehow be okay. 

 

“I’ve missed my best friend.” Clarke said, her voice stuffy and muffled against the shoulder of Wells’ jacket. 

 

“Me too.” Wells replied, but his voice began to change, as did his demeanor. He released Clarke, looking at her with wide, grey eyes full of terror. His voice took on a haunted, gravelly tone. “But it’s too late, Clarke. It’s too late for all of that. You wasted the time we had; you let me die. I am dead and cold in the ground with everyone else that you sent to their graves. All this destruction and chaos…it’s because of you. You are the bringer of death.”

 

Clarke stumbled away from Wells as he spoke, almost falling over a tree root. He reached forward with a cold, dead hand to tear at the collar of her shirt and a scream escaped her lips. Clarke broke free of his icy grip and ran away as fast as she could with her heart hammering so hard in her throat she felt as if she would retch. She saw then, everywhere she looked, the grey-eyed death in Wells’ gaze.

  
She ran and ran through the dark of the forest without knowing where she was going, tree branches reaching out of nowhere to snag on her clothes, her hair, and her face. So desperate was Clarke to escape the vision of the dead beta that as she tore around a copse of trees in panic, she ran headlong into a strong body.

 

“Woah! Hey there Princess, watch out!” Finn said, steadying himself and Clarke as she almost knocked them both to the ground. 

 

“Finn! What are you doing here?” Clarke said, looking up at him in confusion, still out of breath. Clarke was lost, her thoughts muddled and fuzzy but Finn was there before her eyes, holding her forearms with steady, warm hands. She turned, panicked, to look behind her but there was no sign of Wells.

 

“Looking for you, of course.” Finn eyed her with a lazy, confident smile and reached his arms out to pull her closer. “I missed you at dinner. I thought I’d find you out here.”

 

“It’s just that I…I just saw…” Clarke began, but she didn't know how to explain what had just happened. She couldn't help the feeling that something wasn't right. No, it couldn't be. Finn couldn't be there in front of her. Clarke shook her head to clear her mind. Finn was dead.

 

“Gee Princess, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Finn said, looking at her with a strange expression.

Clarke was suddenly aware that something in Finn's countenance she couldn't quite place was out of the ordinary as he put his hands on her hips more roughly than usual. 

 

“Finn be careful.” Clarke said, pulling at his wrists. He did not release his hold. “Let go, you’re hurting me Finn.” When he did not respond but instead clenched her hips tighter in a grip that cut into her flesh hard enough to bruise, Clarke shoved him in the chest with the palms of her hands. “Finn, what are you doing?! That hurt!” Clarke yelled, angry and suddenly wary. When she looked at Finn, however, her anger turned to cold, gripping fear. 

 

Finn had morphed into a Reaper. His worn, soft t-shirt and jeans were gone, replaced by tattered and frayed swathes of animal hide pieced together under crude, filth-stained armor. Blood covered his neck and lower jaw, dripping over his chest as he opened his mouth to reveal a maw of broken, jagged teeth and thin, cracked lips that formed a feral snarl.

 

To Clarke’s horror he stepped forward, spear in hand. Before he could approach further, he stopped and letout a startled cry. They both looked down to Finn’s abdomen where, to her surprise, Clarke was holding a long, serrated knife deep in Finn’s flesh. Blood was already flowing openly from the wound, more than Clarke thought was possible. It covered her hand and began to soak into the sleeve of her jacket, staining it forever. 

“No…no, this can’t be happening!” Clarke shouted, too afraid to move. 

 

“Thanks, Princess.” Finn said hoarsely. The voice that came from the boy who loved her wasvnot Finn's, and the smirk he gave her looked absurdly grotesque against his crude, Reaper features. Again, Clarke felt as if she would be sick. 

 

“You couldn’t save us. You doomed us all.” Finn told her, looking up from his wound to stare at her with sad, haunted eyes. Blood began to gurgle from his mouth as he choked. “I killed for you, Clarke. Loving you killed us all!”

 

The last thing that Clarke saw, with utter and perfect clarity, was a pair of pine-green eyes- the heart of the forest, wild and dangerous as the Pauna.

  
*****************************************************

Clarke was startled awake suddenly, gasping for air. Her heart was pounding so hard in her chest it hurt, and she was filled with panic. She jumped up from a fallen log she fell asleep against and tore off into the trees, hardly knowing what was real and what was a dream. The darkness of the forest enveloped her, swallowed her, instantly.

 

The omega cried out into the darkness as animals stirred here and there in the woods, disturbed by her noisy flight. She could not tell if she was still dreaming or if what she was experiencing was reality. She felt the cool night air whip against her face and her breath came in ragged gasps, but she kept running despite not being able to see much of anything in the impenetrable darkness.

 

Like a wild, wounded animal, Clarke ran through the forest. She bumped into trees, fell on roots, and was caught in thorn bushes, but she didn't stop. An owl hooted suddenly in the distance, and Clarke was so distracted that she didn't make out the edge of the ravine in the near-darkness until it was far too late.

 

With one misstep, Clarke twisted her ankle on the sharp incline of the precipice and found herself freefalling, arms flailing wildly at nothing. As she fell, she experienced a moment of weightlessness, an absurd instant of calm in the midst of chaos that seemed to the exhausted omega to last several moments. In the single breath it took for her to fall, Clarke realized that she did not know if the ground below her was a foot away or a hundred. She did not know if she was falling to her death, and she didn't care. Then she hit the ground, hard, tumbling head-over-heels down the cliff.

 

Clarke raised her arms around her head in a vain attempt to protect her skull. She hit the ground on an outstretched leg, trying to catch herself. On impact, she landed on her injured ankle and felt a sharp pain all the way up her leg into her hip. She screamed, but there was nothing that she could do to stop her own momentum, or even to see where she was headed.

 

By sheer luck, her hands found purchase on the root of a tree and she took hold with all her remaining strength. Her body came to a jerking halt, tearing at her shoulders, but not before her head slammed into the tree next to her. She laid still for a moment, panting into the dirt underneath her, releasing her grip on the tree root with her head spinning.

 

Feeling the sick rise of bile in her throat, Clarke hesitantly pushed her chest off the ground with her palms. She let out a startled cry of pain as she turned herself onto her back with the weight of her body pulling on her injured ankle. In the surrounding gloom of the slumbering forest, her cry seemed unnaturally loud and blood-curdling. Clarke was surprised by the ferocity of it, frightened by herself and the thought of indifference to her own death that had crossed her mind.

 

But the sky girl didn't have to time to let her thoughts linger. Her ankle was throbbing constantly and her head felt as if it would explode. She could feel the warm, sticky trickle of blood running down the back of her neck, soaking the dirt underneath her. She began to feel dizzy and she groaned aloud with the knowledge that injuries to the scalp tend to bleed profusely. She did not have time to waste.

 

But there was no one to save her. No Wells, no Finn. Looking up at the moonlight peeking through the canopy of the forest, Clarke cursed her own foolishness. The trees, for their own part, ever silent and brooding, stared down at her and said nothing. Clarke knew that she must stay awake, fighting the fatigue that quickly washed over her and threatened to coax her into sleep.

 

She fought, but for minutes or hours she did not know. Her heavy-lidded eyes eventually fluttered once, twice, and closed. Her last thought before she lost consciousness was a half-formed idea that maybe she didn't deserve a fate any better than this. There, among the sentinels, Clarke Griffin succumbed to her injuries, and all thought escaped her.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * I have changed the formatting of the first chapter to match that of the subsequent ones- per feedback that I much appreciate. Hopefully, this will make the first installment of this story easier to read and digest. Thanks all, and I hope you enjoy!
> 
> *4/13/17 I re-vamped the chapter and will continue to edit the story as I go. I hope this will prove to be a more enjoyable ready for everyone. Don't worry- it'll get juicy!
> 
> ***If you want me to bother continuing to write this, please leave a comment saying so or offering suggestions as to where you want the story to go!***


	2. Fisa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The events that follow Clarke's injury in the woods.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 2! I hope that everyone is curious enough to see if this story actually goes anywhere to keep reading! This is a VERY short chapter, but I am sure of the story's direction and I hope that you'll stick with me through this new experience.

A low humming registered in Clarke’s ears, as did the sensation of roughly sliding along and uneven surface. She was too weak to open her eyes, but she felt the terrible, pounding ache in the back of her head and a gnawing throb in her ankle. She moaned aloud. The humming and movement paused then, and she felt her body slide to a halt. For a moment, there was no sound or movement, and Clarke’s heart began to beat faster but she did not open her eyes, this time on purpose. 

After what seemed like an eternity of waiting, the humming resumed itself, as did the sliding. Clarke realized that she must be laying on some sort of rough-cut, angled sledge; she was being dragged over the forest floor in a slow, methodical fashion. Her savior- or captor, she did not know which- never ceased to hum, nor did they make any other sound, either from fatigue or exasperation. Just a constant, rhythmic humming, almost like a nursery rhyme that her father used to lull her to sleep as a baby on the Ark. Clarke tried to stir herself further, to stay awake and to open her eyes and observe the person bearing her away, but she could not. She tried, but the world once again went black. 

When she came to once more, Clarke immediately noticed that she was not moving. She also seemed to be covered in a coarse blanket, and felt a cloth binding wrapped around the crown of her head, with extra dressings in the back at the base of her neck to stem her bleeding. She felt a sticky, syrupy poultice against her neck wound, and thought she could hear a fire crackling nearby. This time, she opened her eyes. At first, she saw only darkness, but as she adjusted to the dim lighting, she saw that she was in a hut not unlike the ones she had seen in Grounder villages. 

Across the hut from where she lay she saw the fire, the flames licking the spit above it that held a rabbit. Clarke’s mouth watered at the sight and she almost made to get up before she remembered falling and being dragged away. She tensed suddenly, ready to fight. She looked around the small hut full of furs and clay pots, but saw no one. Warily, quietly, Clarke pulled the blanket aside and sat forward. Her head swam as if she were spinning about wildly, but she tried to focus on standing up. 

When she tested her weight on her injured ankle, the omega had to bite back a seething hiss before she could give herself away. Her eyes stung with tears that she willed away, unable to let herself cry at a time like this. She looked around the hut until her gaze alighted on a staff that looked old and weathered but sturdy enough to bear her weight. 

As silently as possible, Clarke hobbled over to it and stood leaning against her new crutch for a moment, catching her breath. After testing the tool for weaknesses and finding none, she took a few cautious steps toward the door. Clarke steadied herself and slowly lifted the latch off its hinge, swinging the door forward to the outside world. 

“Bah!” 

The anonymous shriek startled Clarke so much she lost her balance on her staff and fell backward. She sent herself sprawling over the dirt floor inside the hut with a dull thud as the wind was knocked from her chest. If she thought the world was spinning before, she didn’t know what to call what she felt like now. 

Clarke stared up at the ceiling of the hut as a figure came into her blurry view. It was a woman, now carrying the staff Clarke had fallen over. She was old and tanned and worn like rough pine bark, but she was smiling a toothy smile down at Clarke, evidently amused. She chuckled, almost to herself, and peered down at Clarke as if she was in on a secret that the blonde was not privy to. Slowly, she extended a leathery, calloused hand to Clarke, who accepted it rather tentatively, looking around for signs of other people as she stood. There were none. 

“Ai laik Fisa kom Trigeda.” The woman said to Clarke, still smiling. 

“Fisa?” Clarke asked. 

Clarke noticed that the woman was short, hunched, and bent like a Weeping Willow tree, barely coming to Clarke’s chest at her highest point. Unlike other Grounders that Clarke had seen, the woman wore loose robes and a belt about her waist instead of armor and war paint. Her hair was braided intricately in true Grounder fashion but otherwise her skin was free of makeup or tattoos that Clarke could see. 

“Mm.” The woman hummed softly with a twinkle in her eye. “Healer, you say.”

“Oh.” Said Clarke, slightly taken aback. She had expected a fight, but she now saw that that was the last thing she was going to get- at least, in the traditional sense. 

The woman began to hum again, taking Clarke’s hand once more and leading her back to the cot where she woke up. She stooped up onto the tips of her toes and tapped Clarke’s chest with a weathered finger, over her heart. 

“Yuj.” She said simply. Strong.

She then pressed down gently on Clarke’s shoulder, bidding her to sit. When Clarke did so, she turned around and began to slowly turn the rabbit on the spit, tending to the fire as needed and rubbing the meat with spices that she pulled from a satchel at her hip. She leaned on her staff all the while. 

“I’m Clarke, from the Sky People. Skaikru.” Clarke corrected, unsure if the woman understood any English at all. 

“Ai laik kom Trigeda.” I am from the Woods Clan. 

As the woman continued to cook the meat, Clarke watched her with increasing interest. She had no idea how old this ‘Fisa’ was, although it seemed certain to Clarke that the woman was the oldest Grounder she had ever met. Maybe she was the oldest human being she had ever seen anywhere, period. The Fisa was an omega, and had been emitting a constant flow of calming pheromones since seating Clarke on her bed. She did not look at Clarke, but she seemed to be aware of the younger omega's every movement, responding in kind to Clarke's actions as she tended the fire even though her back was turned. Clarke wondered at the grand curvature, the great, arching bend of the old fisa's spine, marveling at the fact that the woman could stand at all. 

For all her age and wrinkles, though, the woman had surprising speed and dexterity. She lifted the lid off a large, clay pot that looked to be full of shining apples, examining the contents carefully. Seemingly pleased, she lifted the vessel in its entirety swiftly off the floor and swung it about to face Clarke, who almost leapt up to steady the woman before thinking better of it. 

Clarke quickly saw that the woman needed no help and, picking an apple from the pot at random, she marveled at the Fisa as the woman turned again and set the heavy burden back down to the side of the fire as softly as if she were dropping a feather. 

Deciding that the rabbit was cooked sufficiently, the Fisa lowered the skewer from the spit and set it on a flat stone atop a wide, wooden table beside the fire. She pulled a knife out of her belt loop and made quick work of the catch, her hands a blur to Clarke’s eyes. She could not help but be impressed, and perhaps a little envious of the woman’s obvious skill. Clarke's attention was drawn to the knife before she could conceal her piqued interest, but she healer seemed to follow her thoughts before she had a chance to think them. With an exasperated huff, the fisa returned her knife to the loop of her belt and it disappeared from view.

The Fisa then hobbled over to a shelf near the doorway of the hut and pulled down two wooden plates. She piled upon them in equal parts the seasoned rabbit meat and an apple for herself along with great piles of mushrooms and roots that looked to be freshly collected. Taking the plates in her hands, she moved to Clarke’s cot and handed her the food, her staff completely forgotten beside the shelves and apparently unneeded. Clarke began to think that there was much to this woman that she did not let on, and she smiled despite herself. 

“Thank you. Mochof.” Clarke said, peering down at the plate on her lap, piled high with more food than Clarke had seen in one place in weeks. The Fisa sat beside her on the cot, her old sandaled feet hanging off the ground by several inches. 

The Fisa merely smiled at Clarke warmly before taking an enormous bite of her apple and chewing it with obvious zeal, utilizing the few teeth that she still had. Clarke stared down at her own food. It smelled delicious. Her stomach audibly growled, but Clarke could not bring herself to eat a morsel. She did not wish to appear rude, but she could not stomach the thought of sitting comfortably and enjoying a meal with a woman who had shown her such kindness. It was kindness that she did not deserve, and though she was grateful to the woman for her trouble, part of her wished that the Fisa had never found her. 

She thought of all the reasons that she did not deserve the generosity of this old woman, or the generosity of anyone for that matter. She had sacrificed the lives of so many so that she did not have to feel the pain of losing those she loved. She could not find a different solution, a better way. She failed her people as a leader because she could not show them a path to peace. She had sacrificed children- lives that would never come to be, hearts that would never love beyond the childhood fondness of one’s family and possessions. They would never grow or marry or have children, all because of her. 

They would never feel the hot thrum of their hearts in their chests when they realized that they were in love for the first time. Their knees would never weaken and tremble at the soft promise of a lover’s kiss. Deep, green eyes of a powerful, primal alpha flashed in the omega's mind and she immediately shut the thought out before it could fester, willing herself back to the present. It was only then that she realized that the Fisa had stopped eating and was looking at her with a timeless, knowing gaze. The woman’s eyes softened as she reached up to cup Clarke’s cheek in her hand, wiping away a tear with her thumb that Clarke had not even realized she had shed. 

“Osir gonplei nou ste odon, Klark.” Our fight is not over, Clarke. 

The Fisa lowered her hand and sat before Clarke, studying her quietly. Slowly, very slowly, Clarke raised a bite of meat to her lips and took a small, tentative bite. As her teeth pierced the succulent flesh, Clarke could only think of how rich the taste was. Looking at the smiling woman beside her, a small voice in Clarke’s head thought that maybe, just maybe, this was okay.


	3. Nodotaim

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke begins to harbor a sense of inner peace after spending some time with the healer, but that sense of happiness is not to last...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello all! This chapter was both fun and difficult to write. You will note that the story pertains not so much to Lexa and Clarke at this point as it does to Clarke's own personal struggle. At this point in time, I think that Clarke's journey must be a solitary one in many ways. You will note that the 'Fisa', the healer, allows Clarke to have that independence while still reminding her in her own way that it is okay to hurt. I hope you enjoy this chapter; there will be more to come soon, and don't worry! The moment you're waiting for is coming!

Fourteen times the sun danced over Clarke’s head as she stayed with the healer. Fourteen times the moon ran after it, and fourteen times Clarke awoke in the night covered in the cold sweat of her nightmares. Each time, the Fisa was there beside her- soothing her, humming to her and tending to her wounds both mental and physical alike. Always, the woman gave her a hot, bitter tea to drink, and always it led Clarke into a dreamer's sleep.

Each morning Clarke tried to excuse herself from the woman’s home and bow out politely. Each time, the healer rapped her staff on the log beside her where she sat outside her hut in front of a larger cook-fire, grinding herbs. And each time she did so, Clarke was forced to sit next to the old woman where she had bid her to go. In truth, Clarke knew she could have left at any time, but she didn't. She did not admit it to herself, but she needed the healer. She needed someone other than her own, terrible thoughts. 

They seldom spoke to one another, and when they did their conversations did not last long, but that was not the best way that they communicated anyway. The Fisa saw into Clarke, she understood her in a way that sometimes unnerved the Arker. 

As it turned out, the Fisa lived alone, far away from anyone or any Grounder village. As far as Clarke could tell from their limited dialogue, the old woman had lived in her hut in a secluded part of the forest for many years. 

She did not know why the woman chose to do so, but she suspected that she preferred the solitary nature of her hut to the boisterous crowds of warriors that gathered in the Grounder villages she had seen thus far. Still, it was clear that the woman was, or had been, as much a warrior as any Grounder was raised to be. Clarke felt a deep-rooted curiosity toward this woman and a growing affection for her too, though she could not exactly explain why beyond gratitude for the fisa's obvious generosity. 

For the greater part of a month, Clarke stayed with the Fisa. She did not have a better plan, and each time she tried to go, no matter how insistently, the old woman stared at her with twinkling eyes until she agreed to stay another day. 

The woman seemed to know that Clarke was at odds with herself, and as her sprained ankle healed and the wound on her head closed, the Fisa did her best to protect Clarke from the other wounds that she battled, the unseen injuries that Clarke still carried with her. Clarke noticed that the healer seldom left her alone for too long. It was in those moments that Clarke’s guilt found her, drowned her, suffocated her. Her nights still haunted her without fail, and Clarke found herself avoiding sleep altogether if possible rather than slipping into another nightmare.

Despite her constant feeling of self-loathing, Clarke enjoyed the elder woman’s company for more reasons than she was ready to admit to herself. Beyond being a comforting presence, the old woman was resourceful, and a wealth of knowledge. She taught Clarke to spear fish in a nearby stream and snare small game in traps they made themselves. They ate their dinner as a result of Clarke’s education on more than one occasion; as it turned out, Clarke was excellent at fishing. 

Clarke slept on the cot she first woke up on; the Fisa slept on a bed of furs in a small room adjacent to the main one. The young Sky girl once peered into the room looking for the Fisa, suddenly feeling shy. Above the bed of furs she saw, hanging upon two carved deer antlers on the wall, a mighty bow fashioned out of a rich, dark wood that she could not name. 

Clarke, who knew little of Grounder weaponry and even less about how to wield a weapon so instinctual as a bow, marveled at it like a work of art. She heard the healer shut the hut door behind her as she entered her home with a handful of plants that, Clarke had learned, she would dry and grind into a powder used for breaking fevers and making Clarke's sleeping tea. The woman saw Clarke looking into her room, and flashed the young girl a giddy smile, seeming to understand how impressed Clarke was with the weapon. She set her plants down on the table and went to the doorway of the room waving to Clarke, bidding her to remove the bow from the wall. Clarke did so at once, holding the arms of the bow at length for the old woman to take. She simply shook her head. Clarke’s arms sank, still holding the weapon. She looked at the woman, bewildered and humbled, but the healer’s meaning was unmistakable. 

It was a gift. 

“No, I can’t accept this. This is too much, you’ve done so much for me already and I can’t repay you for your kindness as it is. I don’t even know how to use it.” Clarke started, but the woman shook her head again, brow furrowed.  
“You learn.” The Fisa stated sternly, who was seldom stern with Clarke in any way except when she wanted Clarke to understand her without question. Again, the woman reached up to tap the skin over Clarke’s heart. “Yuj.” She stated simply. 

Turning on her heel with a swiftness that still surprised the younger woman, she ducked into her room and, after some heated rummaging, reappeared with a leather quiver thick with feather-fletched arrows. This too, she handed to Clarke. Just as quickly, she flung open the door of the hut and hobbled outside with her staff in hand, cackling. 

The woman led Clarke several paces away from the hut in a direction that Clarke had not yet ventured. They were going, Clarke saw, to a large target of canvas stretched over a body of gathered wood chips, pine needles, and wheat stalks all bound together many paces away. There was a circle crudely marked around the outside of it with charcoal, and a much smaller one sat at its center. The target was sun-bleached and the markings were faded from years of disuse. At what seemed like an impossible distance, the healer stopped and drew a thin, straight line in the dirt with her staff. Clarke looked down at the line as if it were an impenetrable wall and scowled. 

The Fisa made a motion to Clarke mimicking drawing and shooting the bow. Clarke looked at her and wondered if perhaps the old woman had spent too much time in the woods by herself after all. The healer, seeming to read Clarke’s thoughts as soon as they entered her mind, hit the ground with the butt of her staff and huffed aloud. A small cloud of dirt puffed up from the ground around the staff in the wake of the woman’s outcry and the baggy robes she wore billowed about her like a swelling balloon. If the scowl on her savior’s face hadn’t been so profoundly serious, Clarke could have burst out laughing. 

Nevertheless, Clarke chose an arrow from her new quiver and notched it to the bowstring dutifully. The healer pointed her own index finger at the of her wrinkled mouth, then extended her arm to point to the target, her eyes never leaving the target’s center once. Clarke had read enough about the principle of archery to see that the woman was telling her to anchor the arrow on the side of her cheek when she drew, and never to take her eyes off the target. 

The young omega drew a deep, shuddering breath, and did so. She pulled back the bowstring and the weapon seemed to come alive in her hands. She immediately noted how difficult the bow was going to be to draw to its full length. If the bow really did belong to the woman in her youth, she had clearly been incredibly strong. Somehow, despite her small stature, this did not surprise Clarke in the least. Beyond being incredibly taut, the bow was undeniably beautiful and deadly. The dark wood seemed to warm and its color darken with anticipation as Clarke bent it as far as she could. She never took her eyes off the target as she anchored the arrow at the corner of her mouth.  
Clarke paused momentarily, aware that the Fisa was now very close behind her. Somehow, the feeling gave her a sense of great comfort. She stilled the shaking in the muscles of her arms, already tiring from the weight of holding the bow drawn. Taking one more breath, Clarke saw the shaft fly into the target in her mind’s eye before she ever let the string go, but when she did, the result was the same. With a whisper and a loud thud, both Clarke and the Fisa stared at the target an instant later to find a feather-fletched arrow sticking out of it, well out of the very center but still well within the large ring. Clarke couldn’t believe it. 

Apparently, neither could the healer. She stood for a moment, her mouth agape, as she stared at the arrow. Then, without warning, she let out a loud whoop and began jumping up and down in celebration, kicking up dirt all over both of them. The fisa began to laugh, her throaty cackle echoing through the trees wildly. Clarke began laughing too; it could not be helped. She laughed until she couldn’t stand, and then she was laughing in the dirt, rolling around until she had no air left to spend. 

Once again, Clarke lay on the ground on her back and the old woman came to peer over her, gazing down at her with a wide, toothy grin. Only this time, she did not offer Clarke a hand up. This time, all she said was, “Nodotaim.” Again. And with that, she turned without a glance backward and left Clarke to practice. 

So she did. 

For the next few weeks, Clarke woke in the morning, albeit with her fatigue and her guilt, with something to do. She found that if she spent her time concentrating upon learning to master her skill with the bow, if she exhausted herself physically, her nightmares were not so vivid or long-lasting. Her progress was slow, but steady. Soon, Clarke’s muscles no longer shook when she drew the bow at full length, and more and more of her arrows landed on the target than those that missed it altogether. Some, to her surprise, even made it into the center ring, though she could not yet do so consistently. 

One day, Clarke rose to the rain. The healer did not fare so well on rainy days as on dry ones and spent most of her time on her bed of furs. Clarke guessed that she suffered from pain that got worse with the damp, though she could not have known for sure. Clarke did not like the rainy days either. The dirt around the healer’s hut turned to mud and Clarke was forced to venture outside by herself in search of food. On days like this, the river was too muddy and the current too strong to fish in, and so her only reliable option was to trap game, which meant a long walk in the forest along the snare lines. 

So, Clarke set out, bow and quiver strung over her back, with a canteen of water and strips of dried beef in her pack for lunch. As Clarke hiked away from the healer, she thought of her time alone in the forest after she left Camp Jaha and the fall that led her to Fisa in the first place. It felt like a lifetime ago now, but Clarke continued to feel the weight of her guilt upon her as though it were brand new. It was simply a wound that would not heal, no matter how she tried to cover it up. She was, with the healer, as outwardly happy as she could endure. She truly had grown to care for the woman in the short expanse of time that she knew her, and she was constantly aware of the pains that the women took to save her and to be patient and generous with her so that she was comfortable. 

But still, Clarke hurt. She hurt because she had killed innocents in Mount Weather to stop her own people from being harmed. She hurt because she had played God, because she did not and still could not think of a better way to solve the problem of freeing her people, because she had won and failed in the same day. 

She hurt, perhaps most of all, because she had been betrayed by the one person that she had hoped to trust most in the world: Lexa. Until now, Clarke had done a passable job of ignoring the thought of the stoic Commander of the Blood altogether. 

But today, all alone, Clarke could not help the wandering nature of her thoughts. Her mind strayed to the alpha, leader of the Trikru and all grounders, in all her fierceness and beauty. She hated her and hated herself for being unable to forget the lithe, powerful way of the commander. 

She was, in form, all that embodied elegance and strength. Clarke recalled the first time she laid eyes on the headstrong alpha, sitting upon her throne twirling a blade between her fingers. As the leader of her people, Clarke was desperate to make peace with the Grounders. She entered Lexa's tent determined and focused, but when Trikru warriors opened the tent flap and Clarke entered, she was immediately hit with the overwhelming scent of the most powerful alpha she had ever encountered. 

The scent was, to Clarke, everything wild and free. She smelled the salt of the ocean and cedar and crushed pine, lavender and honey and juniper all at once, and it was enough to make her head spin. When she saw Lexa for the first time, war paint spread across her eyes in a deadly, breathtaking display, Clarke had to fight against all of her omega instincts not to drop to her knees at the commander's feet and expose her neck to the alpha in a display of total, wanton submission. 

The immediate response her body gave in the alpha's presence both startled and angered the omega. It was all she could do to maintain control of herself in the presence of the incredibly powerful pheromones the alpha was pumping out. Her only solace was that, for a split second, something in the alpha's green eyes faltered, and Clarke wondered if maybe she was affecting the grounder in a similar way. 

Clarke let out a shuddering breath at the memory, shaking herself. She longed so fervently, so desperately to see her every moment and never again. She tried to think of what she would say if Lexa were somehow in front of her, and she wasn’t sure if she would bend over backward to please her or bend her bow to avenge the alpha's great betrayal. 

Clarke had changed. She was not the same young woman full of hope and promise that Lexa left at the doors of Mount Weather. She was damaged by her own actions deeds forced upon her with no real solution. 

“May we meet again.” She had said. Her eyes had been cold and impassive and the Commander’s mask of indifference was ironclad. In that moment, Clarke felt like the lightest breeze could have blown her away into the wind. She thought- no, she knew, that she didn't matter to the Trikru leader. Not in the way that she had begun to hope. Not in the way that she had begun to feel herself. 

The experience both broke and hardened her. Gone was a certain lightness that she had maintained even in the face of the horrors she had previously endured. Now, though, she felt heavy and evil. She felt like she could not get all of what she once was back together, and if she somehow did one day, she felt that she would never be quite the same. She felt so consumed by anger that overcame her suddenly and abruptly that she was, at times, afraid of herself. Of what she knew she was capable of, for she knew that if forced to do horrible things, she could. She could do them again. 

So deep in thought was Clarke that on her way back to the healer’s hut, rabbits in hand, she almost did not hear the noise through the roar of the rain. When she did, though, she stopped dead in her tracks to listen. 

At first, Clarke imagine that it was the long, steady call of Grounder’s war horn. 

Then, though the storm, she realized that it was in fact the long, steady wail of a Grounder’s scream. It was a gut-wrenching exasperation of pain. A moan. A cry of death. It was despair and ruin, and it cut into Clarke as deeply as any blade. Before the sound vanished entirely into the roar of the rain, Clarke was running. 

She ran as fast as she could, raindrops pelting her face and eyes mercilessly, but she was heedless to the discomfort. She sprinted forth as fast as her legs would carry her toward the healer’s hut, cursing herself for being yet so malnourished and weak. 

No. Clarke thought to herself. NO. Anything but this. 

She slowed as she neared the clearing that held the Fisa’s home, wary of danger from any direction. It was there, from the edge of the tree-line that Clarke saw the hut.

Its door had been kicked in and parts of the walls smashed out. Part of the roof had been ripped off of the rafters and lay strewn across the open, muddy glade. Clarke’s gaze followed the path of destruction to the center of the clearing when her heart seemed to stop beating altogether. 

There, with hands bound behind her back, lay the Fisa, crumpled in a heap and unmoving. A dark liquid accumulated around her, mixing with the mud that she was covered in, pooling in the depressions of the earth. 

Clarke was running toward her, bow drawn, in an instant. Her handgun lay completely forgotten somewhere inside the ruined hut where she had left it days ago. Clarke saw nothing but the pooling coagulation of the blood of the woman who had saved her life. Her fury raged inside her and she cared not who might be waiting to harm her, only that she reached the Fisa in time to take her to safety. 

Upon reaching the woman, Clarke lay down her bow and and arrow, knocked at the ready, beside her. She removed the woman’s wrist bindings in one smooth slash of her knife and knelt in the mud beside her as she reached down to hold the woman’s head in her lap. Her eyes were closed, and there was blood flowing freely from her abdomen. She had been slashed to ribbons; large open gashes had been cut so deep in her as to reveal the layers of muscle and tissue underneath her skin. 

“Fisa! Fisa, wake up! You’re going to be okay, you’re alright.” Clarke pleaded, stroking the woman’s face, brushing back the wet hair that stuck to the woman’s cheek. “Please, please wake up!”

Clarke’s gaze whipped around the glade, searching for any sign of movement, any inconsistency in the tree-line or bushes that would give the assailants away. She saw nothing. 

Still holding the Fisa’s head, Clarke pressed her free hand down upon one of the old woman’s cuts to stem the bleeding. At this, the healer moaned and stirred, her eyes fluttering open momentarily as Clarke leaned over her, using her own upper body to shield the woman’s face from the rain. 

“Klark.” She rasped, coughing. Blood escaped her lips, dripping down the side of her cheek as she looked up at the Sky girl. Her eyes, so often soft and warm, were sad for the first time since Clarke had met her weeks ago. The sadness looked utterly foreign to Clarke on the woman's aged face, and Clarke let out an involuntary growl. The healer reached an arm up from her side to hold Clarke’s hand, the one Clarke was using to support the Fisa’s head in her lap. 

The old healer smiled a small, weak smile. She whispered to Clarke one final, soft promise through the rain. 

“Ste yuj. Mebi oso na hit choda op nodotaim.” Stay strong. May we meet again.

And with that, the healer closed her eyes and said no more. 

“Fisa…Fisa!” Clarke shouted to the woman in her arms. “Please, please don’t leave me. Please. I’m sorry. Please. Please.” Clarke begged for the woman to stir and wake once more, but she did not. She could do nothing more than sit in the dirt and hold her lifeless body, rocking them in the mud as the storm raged around them. 

The Sky girl raised her head in anguish and screamed to the sky above through the rain. It was a terrible, keening howl. It was a lamentation of loss and despair, a horrible sound to behold. She screamed with the force of an army. It held the pain of the loss of the healer and the friends who had died in space and on earth alike. It was a cry for her father, for Wells, for Finn, and for the hundreds of people she had murdered in Mount Weather. It seemed to Clarke that she would then go mad, so broken was her heart. 

But a sound from the edge of the trees drew her attention. A muffled, repetitive sound that she did not notice at first. She turned her head to seek the source of the noise and she saw them. 

Grounders. Six of them, all male and all fearsome. Standing together in a line at the edge of the glade, the largest of them all glared at her with a malice unmatched by his companions. It was from him the sound was traveling. 

He was laughing. 

Clarke saw her arrow fly in her mind before she began to reach for her bow. She felt the rage inside her grow and multiply and utterly explode within her chest. She rocked her weight back onto her heels and reached for her weapon, arrow notched, in one fluid motion. She stood and drew in the space of a breath, not caring what happened after. She loosed the shaft upon the group and could almost feel the sharp point drive itself into the shoulder of the Grounder closest to her. He yelled in a startled cry of pain and grabbed the body of the arrow, staggering backward. The rest were running toward her before she had time to do anything else. She took one look at the healer’s body at her feet, then up toward the murderers charging at her. She cursed aloud, a wild cry, spun on her heel and tore away as fast as she could, bow and quiver firmly in her grip. 

She did not make it to the opposite edge of the glade before they outstripped her, weak as she was. Tackling Clarke to the mud, one of the Grounders hit her with the combined force of his formidable weight and momentum, sending them both sprawling. Clarke hit the forest floor, hard. The Grounder that tackled her still had hold of her legs and held her in a grip like a python. She beat her fist about his head and struggled to free herself, but she might as well have been trying to free herself from concrete. A moment later, the rest of the group, save the Grounder she had shot, caught up to them. 

“Klark kom Skaikru.” One of the Grounders said in a deep, guttural voice as he approached her. There was something about the way that he spoke, an accent, that made it hard for Clarke to understand him, her limited knowledge of Trigedasleng notwithstanding. The Grounder squatted down on his haunches at her head as yet another Grounder fell upon her chest an arms to prevent her from swinging at anyone. “We have found you at last.”

“You animals! I’ll kill you! I’m going to kill you all!” Clarke yelled in fury, fighting against the many hands holding her down. She spit in the grounder's face. 

The last thing that Clarke remembered was the butt of a large, Grounder broadsword heading right toward her face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts? Please feel free to comment! I would appreciate feedback. Tell me how I'm doing!


	4. Captured

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter! Just trying to set up the next scene. Let me know what you guys think and if you're interested in continuing to read the story or if you have any plot line suggestions!   
> Thanks!

Clarke regained consciousness slowly, but she did not open her eyes or betray her awareness. She could hear the grounders speaking in Trigedasleng some paces away, their voices too muffled to eavesdrop upon. Her heart pounded in her chest so hard she thought her captors might hear it. Her mind raced to think of a way of escaping, using anything she could find to take her enemies down. Discreetly, she opened her eyes a fraction. She could see the grounders huddled around a fire in the middle of their makeshift camp. There were four, two men and two women, all beta's. One of the males had a shoulder dressed in a linen wrap where her arrow had pierced through his flesh. Their backs were turned to her. This part of the forest was old and dense. The trees grew thick, tall, and close together. It was darker than it should have been due to the thick canopy, and Clarke had no idea of knowing what time of day it really was.

The omega's mind flew unwillingly to the fisa, her lifeless, limp form, blood pooling in the rainy glade. Clarke knew she would remember that moment, holding the old woman as she died, for as long as she lived. The savage injustice of the world, this life that Clarke had been forced into, threatened to consume her. Her blood once again began to boil, filling her with such rage she could hardly contain her pheromones from pumping out like wildfire and alerting her assailants to her activity. Clarke tested her arms and legs, but they were bound fast. She swore to herself. If she could not work free of the ropes, trying to escape would be futile.

_Think, Clarke!_

She began to panic, looking frantically at her surroundings as fear began to overtake her. She needed to remain calm and control her emotions or she would never get out of this situation alive. She recognized her surroundings vaguely. They wear nearer the Dropship and Arkadia, farther north than she had been in weeks. Clarke found some solace in the fact that she knew where she was, and at least she had not been passed out so long that they had traveled out of familiar territory.

She studied her captors. They were clearly warriors, hardened and stern-looking. Their packs lay a few feet away, swords glinting against the fire light. Clarke resisted the urge to scoot herself over to the bedroll and cut her bindings. She would never make the distance without drawing attention to herself. She took in every detail of the beta's that she could. They wore typical grounder attire: armor and leather, war paint and weapons. She noticed in the fading light, however, that their markings were different. Their armor was insulated with extra layers of cloth and trimmed with white furs. Their war paint was white and covered most of their face, unlike the dark paint Clarke had seen on the faces of the Trikru and other clans. Clarke's heart plummeted in her chest.

The Ice Nation had found her.

Things began to click in the omega's mind. Queen Nia, leader of the Ice Nation, had infamously murdered Lexa's first love, Costia, and had the young girl's head delivered to the commander in a box in an attempt to break the alliance of the twelve clans and start a war. It was only through sheer sense of duty to her people and a desperate need to maintain peace that Lexa did not order the Ice Nation to be raised to the ground.

 

Clarke recalled the sorrow and fury in the alpha's eyes when she first told Clarke the tale of Nia's treachery. The omega could not help the pang of sadness that resounded in her chest to see the commander in such evident distress although they barely knew one another. Though the impassive mask of Heda never faltered as she spoke, Clarke noticed the vivid, wild quality of the alpha's green eyes. They had become as deep as the forest, almost gray, and Clarke knew the commander was holding back immeasurable grief. She understood then that that was what it meant to Lexa to be Heda. To be the commander of the blood, ruler of the twelve clans. She was not a person, not a singular individual with wants and needs and biases. She _was_ her people. She _was_ the commanders that had come before her. She, they, with their shared spirit, were one. Clarke yearned, even then, to somehow comfort the stoic alpha, but she knew that Lexa would not let herself be openly vulnerable in front of anyone.

_Love is weakness._

The commander's mantra echoed in her head, and Clarke recalled the lessons that Lexa had tried to teach her. Lexa had killed Gustus, her beloved general, for trying to break the alliance with Skaikru. Death by a thousand cuts, and a final death at the commander's own hands. The loss hit Lexa hard, though she would not admit it. Killing was a part of life for the grounders. Their ways ensured their survival.

Lexa tried to impress this upon Clarke when Quint had attacked the omega. Clarke could not bring herself to kill the beta, even though his treachery was easily punishable by death. Lexa looked to her to finish the warrior, her eyes glinting like hard steel, but Clarke could not. She looked at the man through the eyes of a person who had already seen too much death. She did not believe in the grounder ways, for they too closely mirrored the inflexible Marshall law on the Ark Station. She wanted to hope that there was a different, better way.

_But I was wrong. I was wrong and Lexa was right. Love is weakness. There is no life on this earth outside of survival. I should have killed Quint when I had the chance._

Clarke's thoughts stopped suddenly. Her breath caught in her chest and she hardly dared to breathe.

She should have killed Quint, but she didn't. She hesitated, but she never even got the chance to make a decision.

A surge of desperate, insane hope filled Clarke. She had an idea.

A wonderful, terrible, awful idea.

 _The Pauna lives here._ Clarke thought to herself. _We are by the zoo ruins. Its den must be nearby._

Before she could think about the implications of what she was about to do too much, Clarke filled her lungs with all the air they would take and let out the loudest, piercing scream she could into the growing darkness of the wood.

 

Her captors immediately flew to their feet in unison, spilling their food and drink in the process. They cursed immediately in Trigedasleng, diving to where Clarke lay tied against a log. One of the women hissed at the omega in fury, leaping upon the blonde with the full force of her body weight. The breath rushed out of Clarke's lungs and her cry was abruptly cut off as a flash of pain exploded behind her eyelids. A rough hand clapped itself over the omega's mouth as one of the male beta's swiftly kicked Clarke's ribs.

The omega groaned loudly behind the hand keeping her mouth closed as she felt a rib snap inside her chest. The wounded male gave a harsh, guttural command to his companions and they all suddenly froze, deadly silent.

Clarke smiled in spite of her circumstances at the look of sheer terror on her captors' faces.

_In the distance, there could  suddenly be heard a great and ominous roar._

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Well, there it is! A relatively short chapter but for my first-ever fanfic I suppose it'll have to do! If I get any feedback from this, I'll be sure to continue. Hopefully I've written an intriguing enough story to want to read more of. Thanks all!


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